This invention has to do with bracket structures, and more particularly with bracket structures formed of elastomeric materials which are useful for supporting rod-like objects, primarily fishing rods and the like, but including also pool cues, shotgun barrels, and like devices used in sport and play which need to be stored from time to time against damage and suitably in a display manner.
The invention will be particularly described with respect to a fishing rod bracket application of the present structure as illustrative of the utility of the device. Fishing rod brackets of one kind and another are known. Typically these brackets comprise protective supports for fishing rods and are sized in a manner to accommodate the butt end and the tip of the fishing rod in spaced relation against a wall, ceiling or deck structure. These brackets have solved a long continuing problem for fishermen, who after use of their poles need to store them until the next outing. Failure to properly stow fishing rods results in their breakage, as camping equipment and the like is placed against them, sometimes roughly. For this purpose fishing rod brackets have been devised which mount to the ceiling of a station wagon, to the cabin walls or decks of boats, and to room walls at home. These brackets are preferably fashioned of natural or synthetic rubber or like elastomeric material which may be molded or otherwise formed to provide an enclosing cavity to receive the butt and/or tip end of the fishing rod supported on a base, the base being affixed dto the wall, deck, ceiling or other planar surface.
A popular type of fishing rod bracket, typically used in pairs, comprises a base member having opposed upstanding arms which define a bracket cavity in which the rod is supported. A single cavity bracket may be secured to the mounting surface by pairs of e.g. screw fasteners inserted outboard of the cavity proper or may be secured by a single central e.g. screw fastener which enters the bracket base at the bottom of the rod-receiving cavity. There are some esthetic advantages to the concealment of the screw fastener, and for this purpose a single central mounting of the bracket in a manner to be concealed by the rod received in the cavity is preferred.
Problems, however, arise in the maintaining of the appropriate orientation of single central mounted brackets, since these brackets so mounted tend to rotate about their locus of securement defined by the screw fastener, becoming cocked, disoriented, and in need of reorientation each time a rod is inserted therein. The problem is increased by the very smooth, planar and in some instances highly polished surface to which the brackets are affixed. For example, on a boat the mounting surface may well be highly varnished or otherwise polished. The conventional planar bottom wall of a bracket base, fabricated of hard rubber or the like, tends to slip upon these polished mounting surfaces resulting in the disorientation problem noted.